New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched an all-weather highway project to connect the Hindu pilgrimage of ‘Char Dham’ in December 2016 amid much fanfare. Over two years later, an image of a swanky road has gone viral on the internet with claims that it’s from Uttarakhand.
The ‘Char Dham’ project aims to connect four holy towns in Uttarakhand — Badrinath, Kedarnath, Yamunotri and Gangotri.
The viral image, originally shared by Raghav Varshney Tuesday on social media platform Facebook, has received over 1,000 shares and 250 likes.
“This is not Switzerland, this is Uttarakhand’s Char Dham route for which a four lane road has been made,” reads the accompanying text.
“The truth is, Modi ji has done this,” it adds.
Another Facebook user, Anil Kumar, also shared the image on 17 April. His post received 246 shares. It read, “This is the new and improved Char Dham road. Modi makes everything possible.”
However, the ‘edited’ image is not of a road in Uttarakhand, but one of a picturesque by-the-sea road in the Moroccan city of Tangier in Africa. Several online users have posted photos of the same road in Tangier on Twitter.
#طنجة#مرقالة pic.twitter.com/VKsQa1kMFf
— SMILeNJOY ? (@justUenjoy) November 16, 2015
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Char Dham project
In December 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the foundation stone for the government’s Chardham Mahamarg Vikas Pariyojna, a project covering a 900-km highway network connecting the four cities of Hindu pilgrimage in the hilly state. The Rs 12,000- crore project was designed to rebuild a highway from Gangotri to Badrinath, which had been destroyed in the Uttarakhand floods in 2013.
However, since its announcement, the project has hit many hurdles on its route to completion. Despite the National Green Tribunal clearing the Modi government’s pet project, the Supreme Court put a stay on the order in October 2018. The felling of over 33,000 trees for the project drew flak from across the board.
The very next day, the Uttarakhand government refused to stay the project, but also decided that no trees would be felled during the project.
Reports say the highway project has damaged Uttarakhand’s fragile ecological balance.
In collaboration with SM HoaxSlayer.
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